EYES system lets drivers see what the car in front of them sees

A driver checks the road ahead of the car he's following, using EYES tech(Credit: Universitat Politècnica de València)

We've all been there at some time ... stuck behind a slower-moving vehicle on a two-lane highway, having to periodically pull part-way into the oncoming lane to check if it's safe to pass. Needless to say, it would be much safer and easier if we could just see the road ahead from the perspective of that other vehicle. Well, that's just what the EYES system is designed to do.

Developed at Spain's Universitat Politècnica de València, the system would require vehicles to be equipped with a forward-facing video camera and a Wi-Fi communications system.

Utilizing vehicle-to-vehicle communications technology, each car would be notified when another one was following it, and automatically send a live video feed from its camera to a smartphone or tablet in that vehicle. The driver of that following car could then check the view on their mobile device, to determine when it was safe to pass.

Even in situations where several cars were following one another in a pack, the technology would be able to sort out their positions relative to one another, relaying the lead vehicle's video from car to car, back to all of the others. Additionally, because the vehicles would simply be sharing information between their neighbors, access to cellular communications networks wouldn't be necessary.

This actually isn't the first time we've seen a system like this, or even the second. Samsung recently unveiled a "transparent" transport truck, that displays a view of the road ahead on a screen on the back of its trailer. Previously, researchers at Portugal's University of Porto announced their See-Through System – it's quite similar to EYES, although it displays the leading vehicle's video on an LCD screen built into the following vehicle's windshield.